American Style: Deep Pan Pizza (Egg Free with Wheat Free Option)

Looking for a hearty, comforting dinner? Why not try this recipe for deep pan pizza! (It comes with my fiancé's approval, as seen below)

Autumn and Winter are full of party occasions and opportunities: in my family, even without the traditional holiday events, there are three birthdays in October and November. This time of year is a real season of festive eating!

When we were kids, we had normal kids' party food at all these kinds of occasions: sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chips, and either hamburgers, or pizza. In the 1990s, supermarkets where I lived began to stock cook-from-frozen pizzas, and normally they had big, fluffy bread bases. I didn't see a thin and crispy based pizza until I was in my mid-late teens.

The most commonly eaten brand was Goodfellas, but there were many others, including supermarket own branded pizzas. I have very fond associations with thick based pizzas, even though when I eat shop bought ones now my adult taste buds aren't able to taste what was so amazing to my childhood taste buds....

I've been meaning to try a deep pan pizza for a very long time: I popped it on my list of projects to try about this time last year, I just never had the opportunity to try it. I was reminded to try it when I was watching Chef John's Detroit style pizza video on Youtube earlier last week.

My pizza differs from his, insofar as it's just a regular (well, what I consider regular) pizza with a thicker base. I use a completely different dough recipe to his, and different toppings. But, I was inspired by his idea to rise the bread dough in the tin it will be cooked in, rather than in a bowl.

DIFFICULTY

Intermediate


INGREDIMENTS

For the bread dough

6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres) warm water

One ¼ ounce (7 gramme) sachet of dry active yeast

1 tablespoon (15 grammes) caster sugar

½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) salt

1 ounce (30 grammes) light olive oil, or sunflower oil

12 ounces (340 grammes) plain flour: wheat or spelt

½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder

For the topping

Roughly 5 or 6 tablespoons (2½ or 3 fluid ounces; 75 or 90 millilitres) tomato pasta sauce, with herbs and garlic

Pinch of sugar

Salt and black pepper

Roughly 4 or 5 ounces (115 to 140 grammes) grated mozzarella cheese

Sliced meat of your choice: pepperoni, salami, ham, chicken, sausage, etc.

Thinly sliced vegetables of your choice: pepper, tomato, mushroom, courgette, etc.

HOW-TO

• Grease a 9 by 7 inch (23 by 18 centimetre) deep baking tin with a tablepoon (15 millilitres) of sunflower or light olive oil. Set aside for later
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the yeast, sugar, oil, and warm water together. Add in about half of the flour and mix into a sticky paste. Cover, and leave to rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size and very spongy in appearance.
• Once risen, tap the bowl sharply on the counter top to release the air. Sieve in the half of the remaining flour, the baking powder, and salt and mix together with a wooden spoon until combined.
• Sprinkle some of the remaining flour on the work surface, scrape out the dough in the bowl, and sprinkle some more flour on top. Knead the dough, adding flour only if you need to, until you have a smooth, tacky dough. You may not need all the flour, so don't add it all in at the beginning.
• Knead the dough for a good 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Press the dough into the bottom of your oiled tin and allow to rise for 30 to 40 minutes, or until doubled in size once more.
• Once it has doubled, press the air out with floured hands and spread the tomato sauce on top, leaving a half-inch (1 centimetre) border around the edge of the pizza. Decorate with your toppings.
• Set the oven to preheat to 190°C (375°F, Gas Mk.5) and allow the pizza to puff slightly while the oven is heating. Once the oven is hot enough, bake the pizza on the centre shelf for 30 to 25 minutes. If the toppings are browning too fast, cover the pizza with a piece of tin foil.
• When fully cooked, remove from the oven and gently transfer the pizza to a wire rack. This will stop the crust from getting soggy with condensation.
• Serve hot from the oven with side salad, or chips.

Vodka Infusions: Hot and Spicy Cinnamon

Looking for a heartwarming autumnal drink? Try this delicious cinnamon infused vodka!

Autumn is really starting to take shape as we begin the descent to winter: the leaves are falling off the trees, there's a nip in the air, and the distinct smell of comfy wood-fueled home fires can be smelled wherever people live. It's at this time of the year people are starting to keep their houses, and themselves, nice and toasty warm. One good way to keep warm to drink a nice warming spirit, and this is such a spirit.

The slow infusion of cinnamon bark stick into the sweetened vodka brings out a beautiful golden colour, like a hearth fire. As you drink it, it warms your throat and then the centre of your body. Enjoyed in a small amount, this really is a delicious treat.

Infusing vodka for other clear strong spirits is a very simple and fun project that has endless possibilities! Vodka can be infused with dried spices, such as cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, star anise, or cardamom, and also vanilla pods. It can also be infused with herbs, like peppermint or basil (don't knock it), citrus zest, and even tea leaves or ground coffee. With all the innumerable flavour sources and combinations therein, you could become a vodka alchemist.

I find, though, that the infused spirits always taste better if you add a little sugar and a pinch of salt. Unseasoned infused vodka can taste very flat. You could use any kind of sugar or sweetener, like brown sugar, golden syrup, honey, or white sugar. I find a ratio of one part sugar, to 5 parts spirit works best, but you can experiment with your own batches. But just remember, you can always add more sugar, but you can't take it away.

This batch of cinnamon vodka was very, very hot and spicy, which I how I like it, and I make mine with just cinnamon sticks and white sugar. However, if you want it to taste more soft and warm, you can use brown sugar or honey instead of white sugar, and you can even add a seeded vanilla pod for a delicious cinnamon roll flavour. The world's your oyster!

~ ^_^ ~

DIFFICULTY

Easy!

~ ^_^ ~

INGREDIMENTS

500 millilitres (2⅛ cups; 17½ UK fluid ounces) vodka, white rum, or other clear spirit (40% ABV; 80 Proof)

100 grammes (3½ ounces; ½ cup) sugar

Pinch of salt

4 or 5 cinnamon sticks

Optional: 1 deseeded vanilla pod

HOW-TO

• Clean a glass 700 or 750 millilitre (1¼ UK pints, 3 cup) bottle, such as a wine bottle, and pour in the sugar, salt, and vodka.
• Put the cinnamon sticks down the neck of the bottle, breaking them if necessary, and close the lid tightly.
• Shake the bottle until the sugar is dissolve completely. Store the bottle in a cool, dark place for 4 to 7 days. Fewer days will yield a much weaker infusion, more days will yield a stronger infusion. I infused mine for 5 or 6 days (I can't quite remember) and it was nice and spicy.
• Once the infusion is as strong as you want it to be, strain the vodka into a large jug and remove the spices. Return the strained vodka to the bottle, close, and keep in a cool dark place.

Variation on a Theme: Chili Double Chocolate Cookies

For my first strange and unusual recipe for October, I offer you chili double chocolate cookies!

As I mentioned in my candied chili recipe, this idea was born out of a conversation I had with my brother's girlfriend, Stefi, who is originally from Ecuador. She was eating a gingernut biscuit, and wondered whether a hot and spicy chocolate variety could be achieved.

She said the main characteristic that she liked in gingernuts was how well the different flavours coalesced in a smooth and harmonious way. She wondered if such a harmony of tastes could be achieved in chilli chocolate cookies, where the cocoa and chilli would come together well, and that the spiciness would be consistent throughout the eating experience, instead of hitting you suddenly at the beginning, or growing on you as you chew.

I found the best way to balance instant heat and gradual heat is to use two different kinds of spiciness: cayenne pepper, for the gradual, burning heat; and white pepper for the insta-burn. I also decorated the tops with little tiny pieces of candied chilli pepper, picked from Stefi's own chilli plant (which were exceedingly hot).

DIFFICULTY

Easy!

~ ^_^ ~

INGREDIMENTS

7½ ounces (210 grammes) plain flour: spelt, wheat, or gluten-free

½ ounce (15 grammes) cocoa powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

¾ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

Pinch of salt

4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar

4 ounces (115 grammes) light brown sugar

4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, very soft

1 medium egg

8 ounces (225 grammes) chocolate chunks or chips: I use a mixture of equal parts dark and milk chocolate chunks

Optional: 1 tablespoon finely chopped candied chilies

~ ^_^ ~

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4) and line one or two flat baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
• In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until creamy with a wooden spoon. Add in egg and beat vigorously until light and fluffy.
• Add in chocolate chunks and mix thoroughly. You can add any combination of milk, dark, or even white chocolate chunks or chips. I buy bars of chocolate and cut them up, but if you want the chocolate to keep its shape use shop-bought chocolate chips.
• Sieve in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and spices and mix, continuing with the wooden spoon, until you have a stiff but tacky dough.
• Take roughly 1 ounce (30 gramme) portions of the dough and roll into balls. You can weigh the dough balls, or eyeball it. This mixture will make 30 one-ounce (thirty gramme) dough balls.
• Place dough balls on the tray(s), 2 inches apart from each other and the edge of the tray, and bake for 8 to 9 minutes, turning the trays back to front half-way through baking.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a minute or so before transferring to a wire rack to cool. These cookies are delicious still warm from the oven, or cooled completely.

Crystalised (Candied) Chili Peppers

I said that this October I was going to try some unusual recipes in search of more grown-up, sophisticated Halloween treats. This was one of my first experiments: crystalised (candied) chili peppers!

This idea came out of a conversation that I was having with my brother's girlfriend. She is originally from Ecuador, and has a much, much higher spice threshold than I do. She was eating some ginger nut biscuits and wondered if a chili and chocolate version could exist.

I wondered if you could hide little heat bombs inside the biscuits with some pieces of pepper. However, putting fresh chili into the biscuits would compromise their shelf-life. It was then I thought about candying them.

Candying fruit is a very simple process: essentially, you poach the fruit in simple syrup until fully cooked and tender. The sugar in the syrup permeates the fruit and preserves it from the inside out. It's important to cook the fruit until it's translucent and well soaked in the syrup.

When the fruit is candied, it can be dried and tossed in sugar, as shown here. Or, it can be stored in the delicious leftover spicy syrup. The syrup itself is fantastic in cocktails and--oddly enough--as an extra warmth factor in mulled wine. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

This recipe also includes bonus lemon slices, but if you want to properly candy lemon slices you have to blanch them first in boiling water for 1 minute to remove the bitterness.

INGREDIMENTS

Roughly 4 ounces (115 grammes) medium or mild chilli peppers

12 fluid ounces (340 millilitres) water

8 ounces (225 grammes) caster sugar

One 2 inch (5 centimetre) piece of cinnamon stick

3 peppercorns

3 slices of lemon, roughly a ¼ inch (5 millimetres) thick

METHOD

• Cut the chilli peppers in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Cut each half into four pieces.
• Put the chilli pieces in a small saucepan and add in the water, sugar, cinnamon stick, peppercorns, and lemon slices.
• Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once boiling, reduce the temperature to a very gentle simmer and cook for about an hour to 90 minutes, until the pieces of chilli are tender and translucent. Make sure the simmer is gentle, otherwise the syrup will thicken too quickly and the peppers won't cook through fully.
• Remove the chilli peppers and lemon slices from the syrup, but don't throw the syrup away. It can be kept in a glass jar and used for cocktails and chilli sauces.
• Lie the pieces on a wire rack and allow to dry for a day if you want to toss in sugar, or you can store the chilli peppers refrigerated in the strained syrup in a glass container.

Whoops! Where Did September Go?!

Wow! September just disappeared!!

For those wondering where I've been, I started a new job on August 27th. I now work as a special needs assistant in a local secondary school. It's where I went to school myself for my final exams and it's a very well respected private school in my city.

I work with young people who have special educational needs, whether behavioural or intellectual, and I also run the after school film making club on Wednesday nights!

Also, my darling fiancé started his university course on September 3rd, studying Liberal Arts in sociology, philosophy, politics, and media.

Coordinating our schedules for the past 5 weeks has been extremely challenging, and settling into a sustainable routine took quite a while. We had to give up a few commitments so that we could even see each other during the week, let alone time for eating and bathing!

But now things have calmed down and we're both in somewhat of a routine, I'm back in the kitchen more frequently.

Throughout September I was baking, of course, but I wasn't baking anything new. I was just baking batches of scones, simple cakes, and chocolate chip cookies for entertaining and bringing to work. However, this month I'm in the search for new and interesting projects!

I'm always struck with a bolt of inspiration in October. Autumn colours, smells, and flavours (and of course Halloween) are my biggest culinary muses, and that's no different this year! I certainly will do my usual spurt of Halloween ideas, but this year I'm trying some new projects: some for an older, more sophisticated palate, and others as a new challenge for my yearly rash of trick or treaters...

I'm looking forward to sharing my kitchen experiments with you this October!

Sweetie xxx

Rich Tea Biscuits (Dairy- and Egg Free, with Wheat Free Option)

Is there anything quite as deliciously dunkable as a rich tea biscuit? Well, now you can make them at home!

Here in Ireland and the British Isles, these biscuits are readily available in every super market as a biscuit barrel staple; supermarkets even have their own brand versions of this crispy, plain treat. Not too fatty, not too sweet, with the perfect level of firm snap to withstand a thorough soaking in a hot cup of tea.

Essentially, a rich tea is a flat, thin, crunchy scone; it was almost exactly the same ingredients, and in nearly exactly the same proportions. If you look at the nutritional information on a pack of rich teas, you'll see that they're generally 15% fat and 20% sugar, and mostly flour. A scone is generally 25% fat and 15% sugar.

I've made this using self-raising wheat flour, and with spelt flour with added raising agents. I've noticed the ones made using shop-bought self-raising flour work the best, because it has just the right proportion of raising agents. However, I've included a recipe for homemade self-raising flour.

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

DIFFICULTY
Requires a light touch with dough

TIME

About an hour

RECIPE RATING

Intermediate

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

INGREDIMENTS

Ingredients for about 14 to 16 biscuits, depending on size

5 ounces (140 grammes) self raising flour*

Good pinch of salt

1 ounce (30 grammes) caster sugar

1 ounces (30 grammes) very cold margarine, or butter if you like

Water to bind, about 1 to 2 tablespoons

* - If you want to make your own self-raising flour, sieve 1 teaspoon of baking powder into every 4 ounces (115 grammes) of plain white spelt or wheat flour

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

METHOD

• Line a one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper, and preheat the oven to 160°C (325°F, Gas Mk.2).
• In a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour (and baking powder, if using), salt, and sugar. Rub in the margarine, or butter, until you have a very fine mixture.
• Gradually add the water, bringing the dough together with your hand. Add just enough water to bring the dough together into a stiff ball.
• Wrap the dough in cling film, or place in an airtight container, and allow to rest in the fridge for an hour to relax the gluten and set the margarine.
• Roll the dough out as thin as you dare on a floured work surface, making sure the turn the dough frequently as you roll so it doesn't pull back against the rolling pin. Cut 3 inch (7.5 centimetre) circles with a glass or biscuit cutter and prick each biscuit with a fork.
• Lie them gently on the baking trays, about half an inch (1 centimetre) apart, and bake in the centre of the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until the biscuits are completely dry and a light golden brown.
• Transfer the biscuits from the tray to a wire rack to cool to room temperature before eating. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Butter Cream

In recent years I have found that the best way to make cream cheese icing is to not use cream cheese at all. Intrigued? Well, read on a to find out how I made these delicious red velvet cakes with "cream cheese" icing!

Here in Ireland, cream cheese can be very inconsistent: some brands are perfectly thick and creamy, but other brands can be watery and thin. Sometimes you can make a cream cheese icing that whips up beautifully, then other times it will turn into a sugary cream cheese sauce.

The issue at play here is the moisture levels in the cream cheese. Sugar absorbs water and goes runny, and the more water there is for the sugar to absorb, the sloppier your mixture becomes. I'd found the best way to avoid this is to make an icing that tastes like cream cheese, without actually using cream cheese.

Creamy cheese is rich and fatty, but it's also slightly tangy from the fermentation process, and salty to preserve its freshness. Understanding this balance between fatty, tangy, and salty is the key to mimicking its flavour.

In my previous foray into non-cream cheese icing, I made a white chocolate and greek yoghurt fudge icing, and it was absolutely fabulous. However, if you don't want to cook up a yoghurt simple syrup, or you don't have any white chocolate, there is a way to make plain old vanilla buttercream taste like cream cheese icing.

To make enough icing for 12 cakes, simply beat together 4 ounces (115 grammes) of unsalted butter with 4 ounces (115 grammes) of condensed milk. Gradually beat in 8 ounces (225 grammes) of sieved icing sugar to make a thick and creamy icing. Add vanilla essence to taste.

And now we get a little bit adventurous: it's time to add small amounts of sea salt and distilled white (or apple cider) vinegar. I think vinegar is the best because it was a fermented sourness that is like cream cheese. However, if you don't want to use vinegar, you can substitute fresh lemon juice.

Add the salt and vinegar, a pinch and a few drops at a time, until you have the right level of "cheesiness". I used just under a quarter teaspoon each of salt and vinegar, but please add slowly and to your taste: you can always add, but you can't take it out!

If you want it to taste like lemon cheesecake icing, you can also add some lemon zest to taste.

To make the cupcakes, I used my newly revised cupcake recipe and substituted a teaspoon of the flour with cocoa powder, and substituted buttermilk for milk. I also added red food colouring.... but I don't think I added enough!

I also added some nice little red and white flowers that I had got in a Halloween cake decoration kit, although sadly one of the red flowers crumbled in the packet and had to start a new life as sprinkles. The kit also had sugar devils and ghosts, which I still haven't found a use for.

I hope you give these delicious cakes a try soon!

Nice and Simple Lemon Cupcakes

As I teased in my previous choco-cinnamint cupcakes, here is another delicious cupcake idea: yellow and purple lemon cupcakes!

When I went to art college, we were taught about colour theory, how each of the primary colours have an opposite and complementary colour: blue goes with orange, red goes with green, and yellow goes with purple. If you're painting a picture and want to dull a colour for a shadow, per se, you don't mix the paint with black, you mix it with its complement.

Of all the complementary colours, my favourite two are yellow and purple. It's such a pretty, floral palette that makes me thing of a pretty summer field. My least favourite is blue and orange: it's extremely hard to get that to look un-garish.

That's why my eye was immediately drawn to these one day a few years ago when I was walking down the homebaking aisle of Tesco....

I saw them and I knew it was fate.

I bought them and thought one day, I'll have a use for these, and that day finally came recently during my cupcake experiments. I thought making some lovely lemon cakes in purple wrappers would be the ideal way to make the best of these decorations.

For these cakes, I made a two-egg quantity of my newly revised cupcakes, adding in a teaspoon of lemon zest along with the vanilla essence. To make the lemon icing for 12 cakes, I mixed together 4 ounces (115 grammes) of room temperature butter with 4 ounces (115 grammes) of shop-bought lemon curd in a bowl with an electric mixer. I then gradually added 8 ounces (225 grammes) of sieved icing sugar and a splash of vanilla essence until I had a lovely soft icing. I then piped this onto the cakes in a swirl using a star-shaped nozzle, and sprinkled with some multicoloured sprinkles before popping a yellow and purple sugar swirl onto each cake.

Lemon cake is a classic, and I have done lemon cupcakes in the past, but I'm very pleased with the revised cake and buttercream recipe!

Choco-Cinnamint Cupcakes: a Flavour Experiment

I am finally back from a week-long summer camp where I taught teenagers how to play the bass guitar! And just before I left I made some delicious little cupcakes, including these fabulous Choco-Cinnamint cakes!

I think I may have mentioned it before, but I really like the combination of cinnamon and mint (I love "cinnamint" tea) and I especially love the combination of chocolate, cinnamon, and mint. I first discovered it when I ordered a hot chocolate from a coffee stand in the train station, and had forgotten that I'd asked for mint syrup and asked for cinnamon sprinkled on top instead of cocoa powder. The accidental discovery of this warm and aromatic flavour combination is one of my best culinary experiences.

I've always wanted to try making a cake using the choco-cinnamint theme, and my recent experimentations with cupcakes seemed like the perfect opportunity! I think cupcakes are a great outlet for flavour curiosities because they are single serving and can be made in small batches. As seen above, I made these with some delicious lemon cupcakes around the same time.

I made these cupcakes by making a two-egg quantity of my most recently revised cupcake recipe and replacing an eighth of the flour with cocoa powder, and adding half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. I also made some chocolate buttercream with a little pinch of cinnamon, and then half as much buttercream flavoured with peppermint essence and tinted green. I filled a piping bag fitted with a star tip, keeping the minty icing to one side and the chocolate icing to the other, then piped each cake with a swirl. As you can see, I didn't quite get the icings even on either side so some cakes are greener than others!

If you feel like something different, I encourage you to give this interesting flavour combination a try!

Ten Points to Gryffindor! Quidditch Pitch Birthday Cake

This year was my little sister's 21st birthday! She's a proper grown up now.... although she'll always be little in my mind. I think every big sister feels the same way, no matter how old their little sister gets.

So for this very special birthday, I thought I'd do a very special cake. She loves Harry Potter, and so I thought I'd make her a Quidditch pitch cake. For people who aren't Harry Potter fans, Quidditch is a team sport where the players fly broom sticks and try to throw a ball, called a Quaffle, through their opponents hoops to score points. However, they have to avoid being hit by a Bludger, which is a ball that's deliberately hit at players of the opposite team to dismount them from their broomsticks. The winner of the game is the team that has the most points by full time, and if your team catches the third and most important ball, the Golden Snitch, you get an extra 150 points. The Snitch flies around the pitch of its own accord, and can only be caught by a special teammate called a Seeker.

I'm not a big Harry Potter person, I read all the books and watched all the movies once each and that was enough for me, but my sister is mad for it. So much so that by coincidence we all bought Harry Potter themed presents for her without planning it ahead of time.

Her birthday coincided with my parents' 35th wedding anniversary weekend, so we had a big family celebration; all told there were 12 people, including me, at the party, so I needed a big cake! This cake used half a dozen eggs, and three quarters of a pound of flour and sugar. There was cake leftover after dinner, but I always like to make a cake big enough to be enjoyed the next day too.

I made two 10 by 8 inch (25 by 20 centimetre) rectangular cakes, trimmed off the domes (I didn't have much of a dome on either cake), and sandwiched them together with chocolate buttercream. I crumb coated the cake, allowed it to set in the fridge for 30 minutes before proceeding with decorating.

While I was baking the cakes, I also baked some green tinted shortbread and some plain shortbread to crumble later for decoration. I used biscuits instead of coconut because my sister doesn't like coconut, however if that's not an issue you can just colour some and use that instead.

I made an oval shaped stencil out of non-stick baking paper, and I also made one circular and two semicircular masks. I coated the sides of the cake with a sheer layer of icing before packing a mixture of sugar strands and hundred and thousands (which to my American readers are simply tiny ball-shaped sprinkles) onto all four sides.

I coated the top in a sheery coating of icing before setting down my oval stencil. I then placed the circular mask in the centre, and the semicircular masks on either narrow end. I sprinkled on crushed green biscuits even inside the stencil, then removed the masks and filled in the gaps with plain crushed biscuits. I removed the stencil, then piped on some remaining icing into all the un-biscuited areas.

I piped on some simple glacé icing to represent the white grass paint that marks out the different parts of the field.

 To make the golden snitch, I made a cake truffle out of the dome trimmings and some icing, rolled it into a ball, and rolled it round some gold lustre dust. I allowed it to set and crust completely in the fridge.

I made some little white card wings and stuck them in the top, and also used paper straws and loops of white card to make the hoops.

I was extremely pleased with the results of this cake. The cake itself was fluffy and delicious, and the icing was thick and creamy. But my favourite thing about it was the look on my sister's face when she saw it!

Two novelty cake in one year?! I think I might be getting the taste for novelty cakes after all these years....

Perfectly Rounded Cupcakes (Wheat Free with Dairy Free Option)

I was starting to worry about my cupcake fixation: I thought I'd need some kind of psychological intervention at some point. But, as it turns out, engaging in a compulsive and obsessive trial and error process until you get the results you want works!

Sure, my house may have been littered with cupcakes for a solid fortnight, and that was after palming them off continually on my fiancé's coworkers, but it meant that I finally cracked the code to perfectly rounded cupcakes like these:

Aren't they a thing of beauty? When this batch came out of my mother's oven I was dancing with glee, and when I was able to replicate the results in my own problematic home oven I was even more excited. I learned a few things along the way about what was causing my cupcake problems.

I learned:

• From my tests, using a egg-foam (sabayon) based cake mixture gets the most consistent and roundest results. Whenever I used a butter-based creamed mixture, like Madeira, the tops peaked and cracked open, producing a mostly flat cupcake with a nose.
• However, using an egg-foam technique where the egg whites were whipped separately and added to the mxiture later made cupcakes that shrank after cooking. It also made very dry cupcakes.
• I found that using baking powder sometimes made the cupcakes rise too fast and then collapse immediately after baking. The combat the issue, I used baking soda instead, and the results were massively improved. Baking soda is a slower acting raising agent, which in this scenario I think helped a lot.
• Melted butter made a deliciously rich cake, but they went hard once they were cold and staled quickly. Using all sunflower oil made for a lovely moist cake that stayed moist for days on end, and had a nice soft springy texture.

So, the main takeaway is use baking soda instead of powder, whip the eggs and sugar together as a base, and don't overwhip the eggs.

I am so pleased that I found the way to make lovely round cakes. Now, I have to experiment with storage, freezing, and defrosting: I'll be a monkey's uncle before I make and ice 120 cakes the day before my wedding.

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

DIFFICULTY
Requires whipping eggs and gently folding

TIME

About an hour

RECIPE RATING

Intermediate

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

INGREDIMENTS

For 12 cupcakes

2 medium (US Large) eggs, room temperature

4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar

2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil

2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) milk, or milk alternative, room temperature

1 or 2 teaspoons (5 or 10 millilitres) vanilla essence

4 ounces (115 grammes) plain white spelt flour

¼ teaspoon (2 grammes) bicarbonate of soda

Two pinches of salt

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

METHOD

• Line a 12 hole muffin tin with regular cake cases, measuring about 2 inches (5 centimetres) across the base. Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F, Gas Mk.3).
• Set a sieve over a bowl, or a piece of baking paper, and add in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, and a pinch of salt. Sieve thoroughly and set aside.
• In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, a pinch of salt, and the sugar with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes, or until the mixture has turned a pale yellow colour and has doubled in volume.
• With the mixer still running, pour in the oil gradually, followed by the milk. Mix only enough to combine. 
• Sieve over the flour mixture, and fold through quickly with a balloon whisk. Stir until the flour is completely absorbed, and the mixture has a ribbon consistency: if you lift the whisk, the mixture will run off the end like a ribbon.
• Divide the mixture between the cases and bake on the centre shelf of the preheated oven for 14 to 16 minutes, until the tops are perfectly rounded the the centre of the cake springs back when gently pressed with your little finger.
• Take the cakes out of the tin and transfer to a wire cooling rack. Cool completely before decorating, about 45 minutes to an hour.

VARIATIONS

• For chocolate cakes, replace an eighth of the flour with cocoa powder.
• For lemon or orange flavoured cakes, add in a teaspoon of lemon or orange zest.
• For toffee flavoured cakes, use soft brown sugar instead of caster sugar. If you like, you can replace half of the oil with cooled melted butter.
• For coconut cakes, add in an ounce (30 grammes) of desiccated coconut and use coconut milk.
• For coffee flavoured cakes, you could add in a teaspoon (5 millilitres) of ground instant coffee with the flour, or you could use espresso in place of the milk.
• If you'd like a red velvet style cake, you can double the vanilla, replace a teaspoon of flour with a teaspoon of cocoa and add some red food colouring. For extra points, you could use buttermilk instead of milk.
• You could also add any kind of ground mixed spices you like: add in 1 to 2 teaspoons (5 to 10 millilitres) of ground spice per dozen cakes.
• You could also add in mix-ins for a bit of texture interest: chopped nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips. For a dozen cakes, add 2 ounces (55 grammes) of mix-ins, but make sure they are tossed in a little flour before adding to the cake mixture.
• Of course, any of the above ideas can be combined: for example you can add mixed spice to a brown sugar cake to make a gingerbread cake, you could add orange zest to a chocolate cake.

STORAGE

These keep well in a completely airtight container, stored at room temperature, for up to 5 days. After 5 days, they start to go dry. These can be frozen, based on previous experience of using this style of cake, for up to 3 months. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have frozen these for 6 months and they've been completely fine on defrosting, but were only edible for about 2 days before going completely stale.

THIS DAY IN 2014: Anniversary Gift: Chocolate Dipped Gingerbread Teddies (Wheat Free)
There were no blogs on this day in 2013, 2015, 2016, nor 2017